I've got a half-sister and a uncle that are fighting over about $1000 worth of life insurance proceeds right now. They both think they're right. The rest of us think they're crazy.
At least your family's fighting. There's a lot of ignoring going on in mine. Most of my paternal side are racist Bible-beaters. My late father seems to have been the one notable exception since he married my dark skinned Isan mother. The entire immediate family is treated like the black sheep.
That's horrible... It's sad when people get caught up in being 'right' and get to a point where they want to be so right that they won't even speak to their loved ones.
We're all beating a horse that's been dead for years, but another thing to always keep in mind specifically about the 'Boys is that in my opinion, nobody in the family had any idea how to deal with Brian's mental illness, never handled it very well, and to this day still don't understand it. Mike has known Brian for 70 years and still doesn't get the illness thing. That's another typical reaction, though, usually when you get a loved one with a sickness like that the people immediately around him or her have no clue what it means or how to deal with it. They do a lot of blaming and pointing fingers, and searching for answers to questions that don't have answers. They spend all kinds of time in denial, and they keep hoping it'll get better when usually it's a problem with no solution, only treatment. Mike's still around the blaming phase. I give him a pass on that, personally, because if it happened in my family I probably wouldn't have a good understanding of it either.
So after you attempt to understand that, have the exact same guy become a drug addict on top of it. Now try to understand or find a solution to *that*.
When people say mean, hateful things it's because they've been hurt by something or are afraid of something. That's just psychology 101. Mike says a lot of mean, hateful things. Figure the rest of it out!
Now after ALL of that, drip on top of it that these mf'rs are SEVENTY now. Nothing changes in the minds of 70 year olds. That ship has sailed...